The lion, the animal of Ishtar, was so favourite a subject at all times in Babylonian art that its rich and lavish employment at the main gate of Babylon, the Ishtar Gate, is by no means abnormal. With the bull, and still more with the sirrush, the case is different. The bull is the sacred animal of Ramman, the weather god. A pair of walking bulls often form the base on which his statue stands, or his emblem the lightning is frequently placed on the back of a recumbent bull. Similar representations point to the sirrush as the sacred animal both of Marduk and of Nabû. In the Babylonian pantheon of Nebuchadnezzar’s time, Marduk occupied a very prominent position. To him belonged Esagila, the principal temple of Babylon, and to him Nebuchadnezzar consecrated the Procession Street and the Ishtar Gate itself. His animal, the sirrush, frequently appears on carvings of this period, such as the seals and boundary stones. This “dragon of Babylon” was the far-famed animal of Babylon, and fits in admirably with the well-known story in the Apocrypha of Bel and the Dragon. One may easily surmise that the priests of Esagila kept some reptile, probably an arval, which is found in this neighbourhood, and exhibited it in the semi-darkness of a temple chamber as a living sirrush. In this case there would be small cause for wonder that the creature did not survive the concoction of hair and bitumen administered to it by Daniel.
The artistic conception of the sirrush (Figs. 31 and 32) differs very considerably from that of the other fabulous creatures in which Babylonian art is so exceedingly rich. Although not free from impossibilities, it is far less fantastic and unnatural than the winged bulls with human heads, or the bearded men with birds’ bodies and scorpions’ tails, and similar absurdities.
Fig. 31.—THE SIRRUSH OF THE ISHTAR GATE.
Fig. 32.—A sirrush, not enamelled.
As indicated by the Babylonian name it is a “walking serpent.” A striking feature is the scaly coat and the great tail of a serpent’s body. The head with the forked tongue is purely that of a serpent, and is in fact that of the horned viper, so common in Arabia, which bears the two erect horns, of which, as in the case of the bulls, only one is visible in the purely profile attitude. Behind lie two spiral combs similar to those so generously bestowed on the heads of the frequently represented Chinese dragon. The tail ends in a small curved sting. The legs are those of some high-stepping feline animal, probably a cheetah. The hinder feet are those of a strong raptorial bird (Fig. [33]) with powerful claws and great horny scales. But the tarsal joint is not that of a bird but of a quadruped, and the metatarsals are not anchylosed, or only very slightly at the distal end. It is remarkable that, in spite of the scales, the animal possesses hair. Three corkscrew ringlets fall over the head near the ears, and on the neck, where a lizard’s comb would be, is a long row of curls.
Fig. 33.—Leg of a sirrush and of a raptorial bird.
This conjunction of scales and hair, as well as the marked difference between the front and hinder extremities, is very characteristic of the prehistoric dinosaur. Also the small size of the head in comparison with the rest of the body, the carriage and disproportionate length of the neck, all correspond with the distinctive features of this extinct lizard. The sirrush is a proof of an unmistakable self-creative genius in this ancient art and far exceeds all other fantastic creatures in the uniformity of its physiological conceptions. If only the forelegs were not so emphatically and characteristically feline, such an animal might actually have existed. The hind feet of a lizard are often very similar to those of birds.